Module 3: The Director 

The Director module focuses on the role of the director of live theatre and how the director works
with the script and a cast of actors. Students will learn how the director creates a vision for the
play and puts all the different components together in order to achieve that vision. As the team
leader, the director has to navigate the challenges of the actors and the designers as they work
to make the vision for the play a reality for an audience. The young directors will work with actors
to mold the final piece.
*Students with draft scripts developed in Module 1 (and reworked in Module 2) may bring them to
this class and we will use them in training the directors. We will encourage these young
playwrights to continue their revising work based on what they hear and see in this class in order
to continue to improve their scripts.

Course Take-Away: A director’s binder with a mock producer’s pitch meeting at the end of the
semester.

Areas of Focus
● Analyzing the script
● Preparing a director’s vision using a director’s binder
● Learning how to communicate with actors
● Creating a stage picture
● Effectively using the rehearsal process
● Utilizing collaboration and teamwork in the creative process of mounting a play

Syllabus
1. Students will prepare a director’s binder
2. Students will analyze the script
3. Students will practice giving direction to actors
4. Students will learn what not to do when directing actors
5. Students will learn how to block a scene
6. Students will plan and lead a rehearsal with actors

Trainer

Warren is a professional director and theatre arts educator. Before moving to Singapore, he was a director for over 23 years in the U.S., working in Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, and New York City. He has a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from Arizona State University.
Early in his career, Warren had the privilege of working for a few years with a young theatre company in Chicago called Steppenwolf. During that time, Warren worked with Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, Joan Allen, John Mahoney, Glenne Headly, Gary Cole, Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Martha Lavey and Laurie Metcalf. Warren began his directing career as Assistant Director to Laurie Metcalf for the play Big Mama, featuring a young John Malkovich in the lead role.

In 1989, Warren received a Joseph Jefferson Citation for Best Directing (Chicago) for his production of Alan Bowne’s Beirut. Warren was also the Artistic Director for Imagination Theater, a touring educational theater company in Chicago, for over 15 years. In New York City, Warren was the Artistic Director for City Lights Youth Theater Company and has directed and produced numerous plays and musicals on Broadway in which all actors were inner city youth.

Warren trained extensively in the Sanford Meisner technique from David Mamet’s St. Nicholas School of Theater Arts and the Lois Hall Studio, both in Chicago. Warren has also trained with the Steppenwolf Theater Co., Victory Gardens Theater Training Centre, Kyle Donnelly’s The Actor’s Centre, and Jane Brody’s Audition Centre.

Currently, Warren is the Creative Director for Swing a Cat Pte Ltd, an arts production, training and consulting company in Singapore. He also does corporate training for creative thinking for The Creative Experience Training Centre, and runs workshops using the guiding principles of improvisation as inspiration for corporate innovation and team building. He also teaches theatre arts to teenagers at the Canadian International School in Singapore.